NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found 'Super Emitters' (bloomberg.com) 63
Over the course of three years, NASA flew a plane carrying gas-imaging equipment above California and made a discovery that surprised even the state's own environmental agencies: A handful of operations are responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions. From a report: In a report published in Nature on Wednesday, scientists estimated that 10% of the places releasing methane -- including landfills, natural gas facilities and dairy farms -- are responsible for more than half of the state's total emissions. And a fraction of the 272,000 sources surveyed -- just 0.2% -- account for as much as 46%. The report doesn't identify these "super emitters," but notes that landfills give off more methane than any other source in the state. NASA's equipment found that a subset of these landfills were the largest emitters in California and exhibited "persistent anomalous activity."
The study marks the first time anyone has ever carried out a systematic survey across California of methane, a greenhouse gas that's 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat and contributing to global warming. The release of methane has been a continual challenge for California, which has some of the most aggressive goals in the nation for curbing emissions and slowing the impacts of climate change. NASA's aircraft made dozens of flights across 10,000 square miles from 2016 through 2018. Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%.
The study marks the first time anyone has ever carried out a systematic survey across California of methane, a greenhouse gas that's 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat and contributing to global warming. The release of methane has been a continual challenge for California, which has some of the most aggressive goals in the nation for curbing emissions and slowing the impacts of climate change. NASA's aircraft made dozens of flights across 10,000 square miles from 2016 through 2018. Landfills accounted for 41% of the source emissions it identified, manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%.
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CA is a trashy state with trashy people.
...imported from other states. Here, we raise 'em to care about environmental impact, and aesthetics. If other states didn't treat their unfortunates like shit, they wouldn't wind up in California, shitting on our streets.
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CA is a trashy state with trashy people.
...imported from other states. Here, we raise 'em to care about environmental impact, and aesthetics. If other states didn't treat their unfortunates like shit, they wouldn't wind up in California, shitting on our streets.
Got a really good point there. Here in Canada it is coastal BC and the lower mainland that gets that treatment making it even harder for huge numbers of less affluent seniors to find affordable or even subsided accommodations. Alberta for a while was giving away bus tickets to Vancouver to homeless street people in Calgary and elsewhere so we have tent cities popping up everywhere, people living in old run down RVs, car, trucks and on back roads and side streets everywhere the climate is warm enough to surv
Methane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free fuel just being dispersed into the air? Find a way to capture that!
Re: Methane? (Score:1)
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Not sure what you are talking about. In the US we have methane capture and conversion as well.
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Never mind him.
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It's been going on in the US for several (or many, but I don't personally know for sure) decades.
If CA landfills aren't capturing and using methane, it's a CA thing, not a US thing.
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There are landfills which do just that. Run pipes through it during construction and turn that methane into electricity.
With the amount of waste California generates, one would have thought this would have been implemented.
Re:Methane? (Score:4, Informative)
There is opposition to landfill methane recovery from environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the NRDC [wikipedia.org], apparently because it is pragmatic while they prefer purity.
The pure solution is to just not produce any trash in the first place. Then we don't need any landfills.
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Re:Methane? (Score:4, Interesting)
Based on your link, they don't oppose it, they oppose using government subsidies to encourage it.
Which means it won't be done. Methane recovery is usually not profitable, and waste management companies are not charities. So we need to either increase tipping fees or subsidize based on cubic meters of methane recovered.
Environmental organizations are okay with subsidies for solar panels and electric vehicles. Topping up the cost of methane recovery is far more cost-effective. So their objections are not based on any free-market principles.
Re:Methane? (Score:4)
It's still better (for the planet) to just flare it off, and all that requires is some pipe. Whether you let the methane escape or burn it, either way it combines with atmospheric oxygen and produces water vapor and carbon dioxide. But if you burn it, it does that about a month sooner, and CO2 is a lesser GHG than CH4.
Re:Methane? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oppose using government subsidies is the legal loophole used to oppose it. Cable companies use the same to prevent competitors.
This is why I hate most envionmental groups is that they want to shoot both feet before running. They prevent newer (safer, cleaner, etc) power plants from being built to replace old ones, and prevent new ones from spinning up.
Re:Methane? (Score:4, Insightful)
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace make money from membership fees. Their members want ideological purity, not pragmatic solutions.
Re:Methane? (Score:4, Insightful)
The pure solution is to just not produce any trash in the first place. Then we don't need any landfills.
In a universe with entropy that is quite literally impossible. If we want to actually have a positive effect in the environment then we need to be pragmatic and realistic. Discussing impossible scenarios like economies that don't generate waste is counterproductive.
Re: Methane? (Score:2)
Re: Methane? (Score:5, Interesting)
The landfill close to me Indiana does that. Powers all the infrastructure at the landfill.
That is the best way to do it. The out-gas is about half CO2 and contains VOCs that make it too expensive to process to pipeline quality. So burn it on-site in a turbine tuned for impure gas, and then use the waste heat for the evaporative concentration of leachate.
Re:Methane? (Score:4, Interesting)
Landfills seem like low-hanging fruit for methane capture systems. Stable, stationary, ground space available for equipment, vents already in place, and many are already near urban areas that could use the electricity.
I'm curious about the logistics of (from the summary above):
...manure management 26% and oil and gas operations 26%...
Tangentially related I know that many waste-water treatment plants have or are trying to upgrade to anaerobic treatment systems that can high organic content streams (typically is a problem for aerobic wastewater treatment) to generate methane biogas, which is captured for sale or used on-site to off-set electricity costs. So we have the technology, but the methane sources need to be concentrated and long-lasting to get a return on investment of building the systems.
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Actually, WSU and other universities like the UW are busy trying to help create airplane fuel from such emissions. I know a number of small startups that use biofuel from pig waste retention, garbage dumps, and human waste, as well as ones that can make jet fuel from willow spinnies used to hedge farm plots (you chop them off 1-2 feet on the stump, the willow spinnies regenerate quickly and are fully harvestable, unlike full willow trees).
So, yes. That is a far better use than venting it into the atmospher
Methane (Score:5, Funny)
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Politically Inconvient data. (Score:5, Interesting)
However it is mostly in more rural areas with a lot of farms and businesses, and services that everyone really needs, in which political action is going to be messy.
Because neither political side like to say farmers cant do that on their land, and the towns and cities need a place to store their trash.
That said, dumps are probably the easiest politically place to fix. Including collecting methane for energy.
This is silly... (Score:1)
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Gas flaring pipes are common, and there are many landfills where they are in use. Those sewage treatment plants which do not make active use of the gas flare it off, too. It reduces both emissions impact (methane+atmospheric O2 => CO2+water vapor) and odor. They used to have a flare at the treatment plant downtown in Santa Cruz (well, a couple blocks off downtown, anyway) but now they capture the methane and run a generator.
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Burning Methane gives of Carbon dioxide water and heat. What are you going to do with the carbon dioxide? Are you going to also release that heat causing more global warming?
Which is actually worse long term? I've read claims that Methane has anywhere from 25 times to 87 times greater impact than CO2 on global warming. But Methane remains in the atmosphere anywhere from 5% to 10% of the time that CO2 does depending on where I read about it. What I haven't seen is the actual impact per equal amounts of each over the same period of time or even total warming attributed to each for an equal amount. In all honesty I don't know which is worse. My assumption is that the CO2 being re
Compost, including lawn clippings (Score:4, Interesting)
The big producers of methane in landfills are food and lawn clippings (and other green waste). Some trash transfer companies are now chipping and composting the green waste, but the food waste is still going into the landfill in almost every case.
It's actually better for the environment to put food waste down a garbage disposal, because more and more sewer systems are now collecting sewage sludge and turning it into fertilizer. But if you could get Americans to separate their compostable waste correctly, it could be done even more efficiently.
Even meat can be composted with the proper additives — see Bokashi [wikipedia.org].
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I've wondered why large quantity food waste, as in restaurants, can't be collected and used as hog/chicken feed. I suppose there is a risk of transferring illnesses, but can it be any worse than what is experienced by wild animals?
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I've wondered why large quantity food waste, as in restaurants, can't be collected and used as hog/chicken feed. I suppose there is a risk of transferring illnesses, but can it be any worse than what is experienced by wild animals?
I've had the same thought. Chickens are relatively fragile, but pigs can wallow in shit, so that should be pretty safe.
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Simple answer. This is what used to be called a "Metro Pig" People in cities used to feed the food scraps to the pigs, but this invites disease and parasites. Remember why your mom had to cook the heck out of the pork chops? Had to make sure everything was dead. Now, pigs are grain fed or some other pellet fill. The pork is much safer.
Personal farms can feed their own food scraps, but you know where your food comes from and how long it's been around, etc.
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Maybe, but it's not better for your piping.
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Maybe, but it's not better for your piping.
It goes down the sink, not up your ass. Run some water with it. If turds can go down the drain, so can blended celery and carrots.
Oh... sorry about that. (Score:4, Funny)
I was drinking Heineken while eating cabbage for dinner and... well... one slipped just before they flew over. My bad.
Compost (Score:4, Interesting)
> Landfills accounted for 41%
Please compost. Composting doesn't produce as much methane -- the organisms that produce methane don't survive in a compost pile.
There are companies that compost for you, so it's not any different than recycling.
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Mod up, mod up, mod uuuup!
Shut up, child rapist. (Score:1)
This is not the dark ages. Go back to your backwards desert wasteland.
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It just made me laugh.
I just CompostNow, and it's great. They take away the compost once a week.
It's so easy.
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Nobody cares, you child molesting racist you!
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Wait I don't get it. Why can't you say a prayer in your mind at school? Nobody will know you're saying them. Not even your imaginary friends like god and jesus.
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I was going to make a joke about it being cows (Score:2)
But the summary said "farms" so nevermind
Question: Is that true for burning trash too? (Score:2)
Our.city doesn't have landfills, and burns the trash for energy instead. Now I wonder if they are using the methane that way, or are releasing it that way.
I want to make sure it's the former.
(And all waste gases should be collected and recycled too.)
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If you are around a city that burns trash for energy, methane is the least of what you should be worried about.
Landfills are really easy to solve. (Score:3)
"Not The Science We Are Looking For..." (Score:2, Troll)
For things like the UN plan to fight climate change to be accepted, they must convince everyone that it is a HUGE problem, cause by EVERYBODY, and so EVERYBODY must help pay for it.
If you can eliminate most the pollution by going after only a very few identifiable sources, then the charlatans have less power, because the other 95% of companies will oppose any plan that charges them penalties for pollution t
Highest Concentrations Found in Sacramento (Score:1)
"...observed levels of methane spiked 200x-400x of historic mean levels in areas of Sacramento during times when the State Legislator were in session."
(buried in the footnotes somewhere, I'm sure)
Wow. Hopefully NASA hits all states (Score:2)
Uncle Fred? (Score:2)
I am surprised that the satellite didn't flag my Uncle Fred. Anyone who has attended one of our family Thanksgiving dinners knows that he is definitely a "super emitter".